Spain advances

Spain’s David Villa (centre) celebrates after scoring to put Spanish into the World Cup quarterfinals with a 1-0 win over Portugal Tuesday.

By Paul Carbray

Some random thoughts, observations and statistics on Tuesday’s World Cup action:

We saw the good and the bad of soccer Tuesday, as Paraguay and Japan laboured through a game that might have been the worst at this year’s World Cup, although the Brazil-Portugal contest in the group stages was also pretty dire. Fortunately, Paraguay-Japan was followed by an exciting contest between Spain and Portugal. It was proof that in soccer, the final score often isn’t an indication of interest. Japan and Paraguay finished scoreless after the 90 minutes of regulation, plus 30 minutes of overtime, before Paraguay prevailed 5-3 in a shootout that provided just about the only drama in this yawner. Spain topped Portugal only 1-0, but there was still plenty of attractive play, with chances at both ends.

David Villa is bidding to become this World Cup’s top scorer. His fourth goal of the tournament, tying him with Argentina’s Gonzalo Higuain and Slovakia’s Robert Vittek, was a thing of beauty. Fitting, too, that Spain’s midfield wizards, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta were involved in the play. Iniesta slipped a pass to Hernandez, who cheekily back-heeled the ball to the onrushing Villa. He failed to beat Portugal goalkeeper Eduardo with his first shot, but then slid to reach the rebound and fired the ball high into the net. “It was one of my best goals because it got us through to the next round,” Villa said. He was being too modest.

In contrast to Villa, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo was a huge disappointment. he had only one goal in the tournament, against the overmatched North Koreans, and even that goal was an accident. The ball bounced off the back of his head, but luckily looped over his shoulder where Ronaldo could reach it. Tuesday, Ronaldo touched the ball only 34 times in the game, fewer touches than 10 Spanish players had. He got the ball only 11 times in the second half.

The goal was the first allowed by Portugal in this World Cup as the team showed its excellent defensive organization, as marshalled by coach Carlos Queiroz, who specializes in defensive play.

Spain’s win came two years to the day after Spain ended 44 years of international soccer futility by winning the European championship.

The last European champion to win the World Cup two years later was West Germany in 1974.

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